


Sapphistry

by Orockthro



Category: Warrior Nun (TV)
Genre: F/F, Femslash, Found Family, Getting Together, Post-Season/Series 01, Yuletide, Yuletide 2020
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-13
Updated: 2020-12-13
Packaged: 2021-03-10 19:14:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,890
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28042239
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Orockthro/pseuds/Orockthro
Summary: Ava says, “Your lips are pretty.” And then. “Shit. Did I say that out loud?”“You did.” Beatrice's lips form a hesitant smile. “Do you mean it?”(Or: they kill Adriel. And then they figure out how to live life.)
Relationships: Sister Beatrice/Ava Silva
Comments: 6
Kudos: 60
Collections: Yuletide 2020





	Sapphistry

**Author's Note:**

  * For [aredpen](https://archiveofourown.org/users/aredpen/gifts).



> I hope you enjoy this! The found family aspect of this show is beyond lovely and I think you and I enjoyed similar things about it, aredpen. :) Also Ava and Beatrice are cute as heck. Happy Yuletide.

Three days ago they saved the world. Kinda. 

Adriel ripped the halo out of her back and Ava died a little bit (which really wasn’t cool) but then Shotgun Mary lived up to her name (which was really really cool). The halo lept from Adriel’s hand through his neck with one well placed divinium-filled spray of buckshot and the battle that destroyed most of the Vatican was suddenly over. Father Vincent disappeared into the screaming crowd and the demons fled once Adriel was no longer there to stir up the chum. 

And that was that. Turns out even angels (or whatever the hell Adriel was) die when their heads pop off. 

So that was nice. Really gross and bloody, but nice. Ava appreciated it all much more once Lilith clawed her back open and shoved the halo back in and she stopped being kinda dead. Whatever the halo was, it was hers again. 

\--

But all that, that was three days ago. And that’s got a nice feel about it, too. Biblical, almost. They’ve returned to where they began. 

Ava finds Beatrice in the bowels of Cat’s Cradle, her nose stuck in a book and twirling one of her throwing knives in her left hand while her right traces little shapes on the pages. It’s sweet. Innocent and deadly. They’ve had a few days to lick their wounds, physical and otherwise, and most of the nuns have been huddled together, finding solace in each other after Vincent fucked them all over. But not Beatrice. She’s been tough to track down, but Ava is nothing if not stubborn as hell. 

“What are you reading?”

“Poetry.” Beatrice looks up at her, and Ava feels the world slow for the second time in three days. Only this time she’s (probably) not dying, so that’s nice. 

Beatrice has some further comment on her lips, and her tongue darts out to wet her bottom lip. Her mouth is small, but her words are always so considered and perfect, and Ava wants to feel them on her own mouth as they’re spoken, wants to feel them against her skin as they exit those pretty lips. It sends a thrill down her spine. She’d felt this way around J.C., too, and she remembers the hot flush of his skin on her skin and her body pressing into his. Only Beatrice won’t freak out and run away because she’s got a halo in her back and might be a warrior nun even though what that means any more is a little bit under debate. 

Ava says, “Your lips are pretty.” And then. “Shit. Did I say that out loud?”

Beatrice blushes. Even in the archaic, flickering torch light of the church it shines high on her cheeks. It makes her look even more lovely. 

“You did.” And those lips form a hesitant smile. “Do you mean it?” 

“I died three days ago. Like, again. I don’t want to waste time saying things I don’t mean. Seems kinda silly when I’m on my third chance, you know?” 

“I’m not exactly an experienced sapphic.”

“Bea, I’m still getting used to walking and having arms that do what I want. We’ll figure it out.”

Beatrice closes the book, her throwing knife a place marker that causes the spine to bulge out. 

“Mother Superion will get mad at you for that,” Ava says, because despite her confidence seconds ago, now her heart is thundering in her chest. She wonders if the Halo can feel it, if it’s pulsing too. 

“Let’s not bring Mother Superion into any of this.” And then Beatrice is closing the slight distance between them. “I find I’ve spent too long waiting for things as well.”

Ava reaches forward and touches her face, running a finger down where the tear tracks had been those three days ago. That was the first thing Ava saw when she woke up from being dead again thanks to Lilith’s quick thinking and her still-evolving (literally) qualities. Beatrice, surrounded by fire and chaos and shouting, kneeling over her, crying. 

“I thought you’d died,” she says, as if reading Ava’s mind. Or maybe Ava had been speaking out loud again. “That’s what we all thought would happen if the halo was removed-- you would revert back to how you were before.”

“A corpse.”

Beatrice is around her then, swallowing her up in a hug that is crushing. The woman is slight and deadly and hard and her embrace is somehow soft still. That’s Beatrice. A sharp little marshmallow. 

“I mean, I was. For a second there. I don’t think you guys were wrong.”

“I thought you’d left us.” She can feel Beatrice breathing in her arms; they haven’t let go of one another.

“I came back?” It’s a weak joke. But Ava feels weak. Not in body: the halo took care of that problem. But her soul feels weak and fragile and like she might burst. She’s so happy one moment, and then the next she’ll see Mary’s face and then she’ll think of Father Vincent and she’ll be on the verge of shattering all over again. 

“I came back. You said you’d never leave me. So I’m going to say it to you, too.”

Beatrice is kissing her. Or perhaps she’s kissing Beatrice. Ava isn’t quite sure, and she’s definitely not sure she cares. Her lips are soft and “experienced sapphic” or not, everything about it feels right and good.

When they pause to breathe, she says softly against Beatrice’s throat, “Are you going to stop kissing me if I say this feels like heaven?”

And Beatrice snorts into her hair. 

It’s pretty freaking great.

\---

So of course at dinner Mary takes one look at Ava (who might have a hickey despite the fast healing powers of the halo), grins and hoots and laughs so hard she has to excuse herself, muttering something about halo bearers and irony.

“I don’t get it?” Camilla looks between Ava and Beatrice and Mary’s retreating figure. “What’s going on?”

And then the tell-tale clack of Mother Superion’s cane fills the echo chamber that is their dining hall. “Nothing to worry about. Go back to eating.”

Ava wolfs down her dinner-- a vegetable pie with a mug of tea-- and revels in being able to feed herself. She knows she wasn’t less of a person for being unable to. But the ability to move her hand, to grasp the fork and then cut into the crust of the pie and move the steaming, aromatic and flavorful bite to her own mouth... It still feels as miraculous as flying. It’s almost as intoxicating as Beatrice’s lips. 

She blames her flush on the tea.

\---

Mother Superion comes to find her that evening while she’s pacing the walls on the roof. They never did find Father Vincent after he fled like a rabbit in the wind. Ava doesn’t like that unaccounted-for thread, and she comes up here several times a day, just to keep an eye out. Even though she knows Mary is hunting him and turning over every contact she has for information. And even though she knows that without Adriel-the-dick, Father Vincent is just a man and probably always was ‘just a man.’ 

They stand together looking out at the city for a while. It’s windy, but not terribly cold. Just two halo bearers watching the world move about below. 

Until Mother Superion speaks. 

“I am aware of everything that happens in the Cat’s Cradle.”

Ava can’t help herself. She’s speaking before she can even contemplate biting her tongue. “Oh yeah? You were buddies with Father Vincent, did you know he was secretly the worst and hired hitmen to kill Shannon and tried to bring even more demon-things, or whatever we’re calling them now, here?”

Mother Superion juts her chin out and pretends she hasn’t spoken, which Ava is finding to be a common tactic she uses. “I am aware that you and Beatrice have grown quite close.”

“Oh. That.”

“Yes. That.”

“So you're going to tell me that’s not allowed and I should be ashamed and I’m going to go to hell and all that?” She blinks away her anger and her fright. It’s not Sister Francis in front of her. Sister Francis is dead. 

They stand for a while in the wind. It feels cooler than it did before they began to speak. Ava just wants to feel safe and secure for five freaking minutes without the rug being pulled out from under her. Is that so much to ask? Apparently it is, because here they are, on the precipice of the place Ava would like to call home, waiting for this woman who is not a mother but a Mother to tell her to get out. 

“You’re very fond of putting words in other people’s mouths, girl.”

“Yeah, well--”

“I will simply tell you to be cautious. Beatrice has had a great deal of pain in her life.”

Ava waits for more. For the condemnation. For the resentment that Mother Superion must feel towards her. But it doesn’t come. They just stand in silence. 

“I know,” she says finally. “And it sucks.”

“Good.”

And that’s that. Mother Superion turns to go back inside, the click clack of her cane against the stones sounding to Ava like church bells. 

Ava stands out there alone for a bit, just staring at the world and not seeing it. And then whispers, “Holy fuck,” into the wind. 

\---

“Come out with me.”

“Ava...”

“Please, please, please, please?”

It takes three more attempts, and again with the whole magic number three thing. It’s starting to feel too close to meaningful for comfort. But Beatrice gives in with a smile, even though Ava can tell she’s nervous. 

“You’ve faced down literal demons. Or maybe metaphorical demons and literal aliens? But whatever, you’ve ninja’d like twenty dudes with guns but this is freaking you out?”

“I think you may have missed the part where I’m a Sister of the Order of the Crucible Sword.”

“But not an actual nun, I looked it up. You’re totally allowed to leave and stuff.”

They’re in Sister Shannon’s room. Ava’s been staying here ever since they got back from killing Adriel-the-not-angel, but it doesn’t feel right to call it anything other than Sister Shannon’s room. She still phases into the little hidden chamber sometimes, and sits on the floor and lets the glow of divinium wash over her. It feels like Shannon’s ghost is there, too. It’s nice, in a weird and creepy nun way. She really wishes she’d met Shannon. 

But they’re in Sister Shannon’s room and Ava is in a tight little black dress with gold trim and her hair is swooped up and her lips are painted red like a movie star’s. Or at least that’s how she hopes it looks. Not that she thinks Beatrice would be particularly susceptible to movie stars, but it’s the thought that counts, right? 

Beatrice is sitting on the bed, biting her lips. “I’ve never been to a club, Ava. I have no idea--”

“I hadn’t either, before. It’s fun, though. And weird. And full of lots of people on drugs, but you don’t have to be.” Ava’s not sure she’s selling this idea very well. 

When Beatrice just looks at her with that calculating, pointed gaze Ava plops down on the bed next to her. “You don’t have to come. I just think it would be fun.”

She reaches out and runs a finger down the line of gold braid that edges the hem of Ava’s decidedly short dress, and a shiver runs down Ava’s spine. 

“I like seeing you happy,” she says. And it’s Ava’s turn to blush.

\---

The club they go to isn’t the one she went to with J.C.. But it’s still a club, and it’s still filled with lights and cigarette smoke and sweat and music loud enough to shake her bones.

And Beatrice.

Beatrice fills the space like she was put there by god. 

Of course, she’s not wearing a slinky little black dress like Ava is. She’s in her usual garb, including her hair covering. She looks out of place and perfect. 

“Dance with me!” Ava shouts over the music, and pulls Beatrice by the hand forward until they’re both in the confusing mass of bodies. This is what Ava loves about dancing. Besides the fact that she can, of course. She’s dancing and she can feel the music through her feet as it pulses through the floor, and so is everyone else. Here she’s nothing special at all, just one more of a mass of humanity funneling life into movement and through movement feeling alive.

Beatrice comes along with her, but is an awful dancer. Which is totally unsurprising. But she does it anyway, and Ava smiles wide and kisses the corner of her mouth. 

“I was taught to dance the waltz and the foxtrot,” Beatrice says, and if Ava hadn’t had her voice in her head while phasing through endless feet of concrete, she doesn’t think she would pick it out over the din. But Beatrice’s voice is now something she’ll always be listening for, apparently. 

“This isn’t the waltz, and I don’t know what a foxtrot is,” she shouts back.

“So I’m realizing.” 

And Ava laughs and grabs at Beatrice’s hands and dances them wildly around. People move out of their way. Nothing matters but watching Beatrice’s face in the flashing lights, watching her smile at Ava’s excitement. 

They sit out on the curb after a little while; Ava feels sated. The sound of the club still flows in and out when someone opens the door. 

“I can see why you like it.”

“You do?”

“Yes.” Beatrice captures one of Ava’s hands in her’s. She’s sweaty, and a little self conscious about it, but Bea doesn’t seem to care so Ava tries not to, too. “It makes you feel alive.”

“Yes. Yeah. It really does. There’s just so much shit still. Father Vincent is still out there. Lilith is dealing with whatever she’s dealing with and not even Camilla can stay cheerful all the time right now. And just yesterday I saw Mary punch a wall, and that wall was innocent. There’s just so much shit. And sometimes it feels good to just... be.”

Beatrice’s hand is warm and there are calluses from a hundred skills Ava will never have. And scars and pain that Ava will never fully understand. “Know what else makes me feel alive?”

Beatrice bites her bottom lip. 

And then Ava smiles against those same lips. “Becoming an experienced sapphic with you.” 

“Ava?”

Ava looks up, and there, back lit by the streetlights and the strobing glow of passing car headlamps is Chanel. 

“Oh my god, Chanel!”

Chanel takes three long-legged strides and closes the distance between them, pauses, and then folds Ava into a hug. Chanel smells like sweat and alcohol, and Ava has a strong pang of homesickness. Not for the fucking orphanage, not now that Diego got out. But for that magical day or three between things. Between coming back from the dead and then everything going to shit. She suddenly wants to spend days telling Chanel everything, even though she knows full well it makes no sense at all and that she and Chanel aren’t exactly best friends. But for that day or three, Chanel was one of the only people on earth who knew her. 

“Where’s everyone else?” she asks, looking around for J.C. 

Chanel, glamorous as ever, flicks the gold sequined shoulder strap that had slid down back over her shoulder. “They split. J.C. went back to his dad, I think. He was... whatever happened, he was wigged and left. Everyone else just kinda,” she floats her fingers in the air, and they’re gold painted, too. “Went their own ways. I’ll be going in a day or two. I’m waiting for my cash situation to improve.” That’s said with a wink that Ava doesn’t quite get, but doesn’t need to. 

Chanel is here. Chanel is okay. 

“Oh! This is my friend Beatrice.”

Beatrice smiles, but it’s nervous. 

“Oh shit,” she says, looking back at Beatrice. “Should I have introduced you as my girlfriend?”

Chanel laughs. “God, you’re so weird. But I’m glad that ARQ-Tech bitch didn’t murder you or whatever. I’ll see you around, kay? Maybe in New York or France something. Nice meeting you nun-chick.”

As Chanel wanderers back into the club, Ava’s mind wanders, too. “If your nickname was Chuck, you could be a nun-chuck.”

“Ava...”

“Hm?”

“If you want this life... we can still try to find a way.”

“What are you talking about?”

She watches Beatrice swallow. “If you want to go with your friends. If you want... to go with Chanel. We can try to find a way to make it work. The Order of the Crucible Sword relies upon the halo, but--”

“Beatrice, I already chose.” 

She leans down and kisses her, just a little kiss, on the lips. 

“I like dancing. And I like Chanel. But I already picked. Okay?”

Beatrice kisses her back. The night is cold against her sweaty skin but Beatrice is warm and alive. They’re both fucking alive. 

“Good,” Beatrice says, “Because I find I like the idea of learning to be sapphic with you, too.”


End file.
